Internationalizing 9/11: Hope and Redemption in Nadeem Aslam’s "The Wasted Vigil" (2008) and Colum McCann’s "Let the Great World Spin" (2009)

Abstract

In a recent literary critical survey, Catherine Morley notes a suite of trends in 9/11 fiction: ‘While many of the initial reactions to the events of 11th September were notable for their uniquely subjective emphasis, with writers discussing what the attacks meant to them, to their art and to their writing, what many writers have also been integrating into their fiction has been the American response to the attacks.’ The current discussion strives to depart from domestic, subjective reactions to 9/11 in literary fiction and essay the work of two international novelists: the Pakistaniborn Nadeem Aslam and the Irish-born Colum McCann. Respectively, their novels, The Wasted Vigil (2008) and the National Book Award winning Let the Great World Spin (2009), deal with 9/11 in elliptical ways, as neither is set in the direct post-9/11 period in the United States. Respectively, Aslam and McCann provide allochronic narrative responses to the terroristic outrages and, by implication, to the impassioned subsequent reactions and repercussions. In displacing 9/11, both authors allow geographical and historical breathing space in which to reflect upon the motivations, personal tragedies, and the implications of the events. These novels prompt the question: where can we divine non-American and noncontemporary moments of hope and despair?